writing need help please

Jul 3rd, 2015

FratBro23

Category:

Writing

Price: $10 USD

Question description

Discretion
and Ethical Decisions week 2 discussion 2 (Amb)

You are a patrol sergeant lecturing to a college class about the patrol
function. Someone raises her hand and asks, “Sergeant, your officers obviously
can’t enforce all of the laws all of the time. Which laws are always enforced,
and which ones are not? What factors determine how police discretion is
used?” The concepts of police discretion and ethics are obviously intertwined
because all ethical dilemmas involve making a choice. How would you respond
(without saying something like “We enforce all of the laws, all of the time,”
which of course would be untrue)? How would you fully explain police discretion
to the citizens’ group? How do you explain the fostering of good ethical
decision making and discretion? How do you explain which laws are enforced
first and the discretion involved in that ethical decision making?

would respond by saying
that the department wishes to be able to enforce all of the laws, all of the
time but due to the severity of some crimes, they would take precedence over
the other crimes. An officer’s discretion would also become a factor. For
example, an officer may be walking along the street during their shift and
spots someone acting suspicious but at the same time, they hear something that sounds
like gunfire. Rather than approaching the individual, the officer would check
out the gunfire. Discretion can be explained as “an official action that is
taken by a criminal justice official i.e. police officer, lawyer or judge etc.
in which they use their own individual judgment, to decide the best course of
action (Halliday, n.d.). An officer would be able to use their discretion to
determine what may be a larger threat to public safety. The fostering of good
ethical decision making and discretion can be explained as whether an officer
is making decisions that have good intentions or if they are making decisions
that could be seen as the “breeding ground for police corruption” (Peak, 2012).
The laws that would be enforced first would be the ones that are the most
severe and could be life threatening. Otherwise, officers would be able to
choose what they would like to do with the other occurrences.